Dynasty... Dead!

The Broncos Saturday Night made "Save Until I Delete" Status on my TiVo with a 27-13 win over the Two-Time Defending Champion New England Patriots. Five New England turnovers were the story as Tom Brady and the Patriots made errors, forced and unforced all night long.

My Observations:

-Like I thought, Denver's talking up of the Patriots was more lip-service than deep-seeded belief. Phil Simms revealed this in his reporting of the comments during his production meeting with the players. I had started to suspect so when Tom Brady was being compared to Cognac.

-Denver's crowd in a home playoff game is unlike any other, they rattled the team that had "been there before" little did they know there was no "there" like Mile High. Good job locals!

-As for the two iffy calls during the game. The Pass Interference on Assante Samuel may not have been PI and was called by the wrong referee but there was Illegal Contact all over that play and the hand to the back of Lelie may have done more to disrupt him than the cameras tell.

The out-of-bounds out of the endzone touchback rule is one of the worst in football. All I've seen it ever do is bail out teams that would have given up touchdowns by turnovers or near turnovers. Why wouldn't the result be at least a Safety? I'm glad the replay came up inconclusive (and it did). To give New England the ball back on the 20 with Bailey unable to reenter the game for two plays would have been an unjust momentum changer. I credit Ben Watson for the effort but the "Pats" shouldn't have gotten the right to be bailed out. And yes, Champ was showboating. MOVE THE BALL TO THE OTHER ARM ASSHOLE!

-Some Patriots fans don't agree with me on the two calls and some others.

-The Dynasty didn't just get beat. It became unglued. And by some of its most valuable members. Brady's picks. Vinatieri's miss. Troy Brown's fumble. McGinest and Larry Izzo in a shoving match (of which McGinest got the much better of).

-The mood back here was that of a funeral. I watched Patriots 5th Quarter on the CBS affiliate here straight through for the first time ever (never been this much fun to watch), they tried to play the PI call on Samuel as the turning point of the game. Belichick seemed on the verge of breaking down and was rather short with the media during his press conference. Brady while upset wore a suit worth more than me so even Saturday Night, it ain't bad being Tom Brady.

-WEEI, was pelted with Denver callers all week (they stream on the Internet), and the hosts were pretty annoyed by week's end. Former Nose Guard Fred Smerlas (who played his final two years with the Patriots, played for that other local bastion of evil Boston College, and grew up in Waltham) was incredulous in his post-game comments

Regardles of the reaction. The New England Patriot dynasty is no more, unless they win next year and they try to make up a 4 in 6 years dynasty and our Denver Broncos move on to the AFC Championship Game.